Obsidian Butterfly by Laurell K. Hamilton

This is the Edward book. Obsidian Butterfly is both a club and a vampire.

Edward calls Anita to come out to New Mexico to help him figure out a case.   He isn’t sure what is killing people so he needs a preternatural expert.  Also, Anita killed Harley and Edward told her she’d owe him a favor.

Edward goes by “Ted Forrester” in NM and Anita meets, shockingly, his fiancee, Donna,  and her children, Peter and Becca.

There are several bodies who have been, essentially, skinned alive but no one knows how or by what.  Lieutenant Marks takes an immediate dislike to Anita, on religious grounds.  He says to her at one point, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” (quoting Exodus 22:18)

Anita and Edward drive back to Santa Fe and Anita “feels” something. She asks Edward/Ted to stop so she can “feel” it and she isn’t sure what “it” is. They get to Ted/Edward’s house and Anita meets Bernardo who tries to charm her but she doesn’t fall for it.

Anita meets “Obsidian Butterfly” who is an Aztec vampire. She has several conquistadores that she has kept to punish as long as they can be punished. We’re going on 400 years or so now.

Anita and Bernardo go to Los Duenos to meet another necromancer who has a reputation for bad stuff, Nicandro Baco. AB asks him to help her with whatever that presence is that is freaking her out. He seems sort of nervous about it, too.

The victims in the hospital actually aren’t alive. Their “master” is somehow keeping them alive. Anita realizes this and goes back to the hospital to try to do something but is too late. Another creature kills a couple of officers, kills some babies and then dies. Its master is pretty ticked off about it and Anita nearly dies.

I’d forgotten that I didn’t really like this book. I skimmed through the last half since I was bored, so I can’t really tell you what happened. Other than: Peter and Becca were kidnapped but were rescued. The bad guys called Edward “Undertaker.” Now he has several aliases: Ted Forester, Death and the Undertaker.